Category Archives: Call Rate

The thirst of robust economic expansion and higher commodity prices will technically push inflation on the upside and interest rate in India is expected to remain high for the next couple of fiscal years as the RBI seeming to keep interest rates on the higher side to maintain the cost of credit exorbitant to lessen the demand.

Permalink: bit.ly/mSJbx9 – Text the permalink of this research to your Friends.

It was the confrontational step of the Reserve Bank of India by revising another 50 bps in its policy rates to address the wild price rise situation in order to eliminate the risk of higher inflation and to persuade the Indian economy to grow fast but sustainably. VMW has analyzed the inflation problem from the household’s kitchen to the corporate decision maker and found that the food prices are not rising as fast as the non-food articles do, due to increase in international commodity prices. Food prices in March rose by 9.47 per cent while the prices of non-food articles rose by 25.88 per cent largely inflated by expensive crude oil and other important imported commodity products. So far, the effect of RBI’s rate tightening and expensive commodity prices – rallied on the economic euphoria – can be seen on the Capital Goods sector of India. India’s IIP index has been fluctuating, and the capital goods, index in particular, has performed deplorably (see figure below) due to higher cost of credit, tolling in the company’s income statement in terms of higher interest payments. Construction, Energy, Real Estate, Diversified and Infrastructure companies have piled up billions of dollars in terms of debt to function their operations and to execute their awarded projects.

The important wings of the Indian government and the Reserve Bank of India are expecting the inflation around 6 per cent by the end of the fiscal year 2012. However, the VMW’s estimates are bucking the government and RBI’s estimates – expecting the inflation to remain above 6 percent and even in a double digit by the end of this year (up to 11 percent). The only fundamental cause is the India’s hunger of economic expansion at a faster pace, and the same would not pull down the inflation to lower levels, since it will dramatically push the demand in the economy for pricey imported commodity. Moreover, the US Federal Reserves’ monetary expansion program, known by Quantitative Easing or QE2 is scheduled to end by Jun, 2011 and, perhaps, it will not reduce the impact of higher inflation in the economy right away and high supply of a dollar could depreciate it against the other major currencies, which will push the international commodity prices. The expensive imports will prevail upon the higher current account deficit until the export figures too remain blunt. Henceforth, the Current Account Deficit remains a prime concern for the economy. Although, RBI is not considering it as a major threat but the VMW is deliberating the same, and the prime predicament could be the lower portfolio investments since Foreign Institutional Investors’ flows (FII) are the immediate source of financing the Current Account Deficit and Foreign Direct Investments are not as easy as the FII flows are due to scores of roadblocks to the investments and instability in national politics and India’s foreign policy.

Inflation always Remained High in India and Now Needs Government Intervention Plus Tighter Monetary Policy from RBI’s Side.

Now, in our research lab, we have analyzed the inflation problem. Look at the GDP Deflator and the WPI Inflation rate – how these trend lines have emerged over the past six fiscal years. GDP deflator is one of the other important tools to measure inflation, and it show, the inflation problem was relentlessly haunting the Indian economy. The most significant discovery is, the RBI loosened the policy rates during FY08, when India faced the condition of deflation due to change in the base year and was not reflecting the correct picture. However, GDP deflator remained at the alarming levels. At the same time, in FY09, RBI has raised the interest rates to prevent India to be a victim of the global financial crisis.

Here, we are not suggesting the RBI to track the GDP deflator, but to align its monetary policy to fix the “structured inflation problem”, caused by huge government borrowings, and at the same time, to make the economic growth sustainable and to refrain from the economic overheating. Plus to this, there is an urgent need of government intervention in terms of policies to overhaul the distribution of agricultural produce, to check the government borrowings and bringing down the fiscal deficit, which is now estimated at 5.6 percent until Feb, 2011 and 5.8 percent for FY2011. This will also subdue the prices.

Future of the Interest Rates in India

Rise in crude oil prices and other imported commodity price holes the Indian Economy up. It is one of the biggest risks to India since the country is not completely reliant on its own energy output and imports more than 70 percent of crude oil from GCC countries and other OPEC members. It’s expected that the global economic recovery would not stall but the pace will come down most importantly when the United States has stepped up its efforts to bring down the fiscal deficit to 4.1 percent by 2014. Nevertheless, the real economic output could remain under pressure due to the effect of increasing government debt. Since, we have focused on the final output (GDP) and it shows the prices of final produce in a particular financial year are increasing by more than 7.0 percent, whereas the WPI inflation is fluctuating throughout the discussed fiscal years. Provided herein is India’s stock of money or M3 for the last three fiscal years, which reverberates above 20 per cent. However, it is now falling significantly back to 15 per cent, and it shows the RBI’s action in policy rate is working, which means the monetary policy has a certain effect on the core inflation problem and would make an impact on the demand side but it is not sustainable as the government’s borrowing plans are on track.

Lower money supply has side effects too as it will increase the cost of credit further, and it will reduce the access to credit. Moreover, the stock markets could not function properly in this environment since the economic activity declines, which will eventually reduce the value of people’s retirement savings. However, the RBI has only one choice – tight monetary policy to tame inflation by giving up the India’s ambitions of double digit economic growth.

Reserve Bank of India on Apr 20, 2010 has revised its policy rates and CRR by 25 bps. In response to the intimidating supply side factors, India’s inflation dynamic economic growth – as the domestic balance of risk shifts from economic slowdown to inflation, RBI decided to absorb liquidity from the market to control prices. The recovery process in the global economy persists amidst the policy support around the world. In India, RBI has forecasted the GDP growth for 2009-10 at 7.5 per cent while the CSO has forecasted the GDP growth at 7.2 per cent and may settle down in between 7.2 and 7.5 per cent.

Challenges remain in the economy, just perturbing factor has shifted from the economic slowdown to the inflation. Today, inflation is the biggest challenge for the RBI. The headline inflation – measured on WPI on year over year basis, expedited from 0.5 per cent in Sep 2009 to 9.9 per cent in Mar 2010, exceeded the RBI’s baseline projection of 8.5 per cent. Since the economic environment evolving very rapidly, the demand for non-food items also hasten which is propping-up the inflation, thus it is clear WPI is no longer driven by the supply side factors alone.

Raising substantial amount of money for the central government and at the same time, curbing additional liquidity to control prices will be a biggest challenge for the Reserve Bank of India to manage borrowings of the government during 2010-11.

During 2009-10, the Central government borrowed Rs398,411 Crores ($87.3 Billion approx.) through the market borrowing programme such as Market Stabilization Scheme (MSS) and open Market operations (OMO). This large market borrowing by the government pushing up the yields on government securities during the last financial year, however the lower demand for the credit by the private sectors and better liquidity management by the central bank has cushioned the yields. Moreover, the Union Budget for 2010-11 has begun the process of fiscal consolidation. Government budgeting to pull down the fiscal deficit to 5.5 per cent of the total GDP as compare to 6.7 per cent in 2009-10.

What would be the Possible Causes for Further Elevation in headline Inflation?

Rise in Food as well as non-food articles as the prospect of monsoon is not yet clear.

Rise in commodity prices poses greater risk to the inflation such as wild volatility in crude oil prices.

Strong industrial output according to the IIP data shows the revived confidence in corporates and regaining their pricing power and building up of demand side pressure.

Initiating the fiscal consolidation process is a major positive development to enhance the monetary situation in the country as it aimed at reducing the government deficits. This will help avoid the unforeseen demand for private sector credit and would facilitate better monetary management. Nevertheless, the overall size of the government borrowing would exert pressure on the interest rates going forward.

After a series of monetary expansion during the financial crisis, Reserve Bank of India decided to curb liquidity by way of revising policy rates and CRR. In order to achieve the consolidating economic growth, RBI’s policy stance would be a meaningful step towards the resilient economic growth of the country despite the dubiety of rainfall, inflation is now become more generalized and no longer driven by supply side pressure and better liquidity management to make sure that government borrowing programme would not get hampered. In its latest monetary measures, RBI had the following plan of action for managing liquidity:

Policy Rates as of Jun 2010

Repo Rate

5.25%

0.25

Reverse Repo Rate

3.75%

0.25

Bank Rate

6%

0

Reserve Ratios

Cash Reserve Ratio

6%

0.25

Statutory Liquidity Ratio

25%

0

Please read the latest VMW Research on the RBI’s Monetary Policy at VMW Blog!

As expected, Central bank, Reserve Bank of India has raised Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 75 bps to 5.75% and keeps its policy rates unchanged as per the expectations of VMW, however the hike in CRR is well above, what we had anticipated. While the global economy is stabilizing, the growth outlook has been revised. Economies have rebounded steadly after the significant government intervention. Over the past two years, RBI has reduced the policy rates and CRR in response to the economic crisis to infuse the sufficient amount of liquidity into the market to emerge from the dried liquidity situation and to provide the ample credit facility to the economy to impede the greater risk of economic trouble for the second fastest growing economy in the world. The general trend of CRR (shown below), shows, how the central bank has responded to the economic trouble. During the reign of YV Reddy, CRR jumped to 9 per cent in Aug 2008 just before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers to absorb the additional liquidity in order to prevent the Indian companies (banks & companies) to invest outside into the risky assets.

After few days, Duvvuri Subbarao has taken over the charge of RBI and he decided to reduce interest rates by more than 400 bps, when the financial crisis was at peak. Overall, the RBI has predominantly managed the situation mightily and helped the Indian companies to grow even in a gloomy economic period to a certain extent. Now this time, RBI raised the CRR as the Inflation rate is again at the alarming levels. India’s spiralling money supply over the past few months has grew by more than 22 per cent which is again the another matter of concern, which the RBI is taking it seriously to contain the the rise in prices. Rise in CRR would not likely affect the cost of borrowing as the banks are sitting on ample liquidity and shifting to the demand deposits to reduce their cost. Bank’s CASA , Time Deposit ratio has been shifted very aggresively post economic recession to reduce their cost. However, over the next few quarters, RBI may hike the Repo rate and Reverse Repo rate if the inflationary pressure continues.

Reserve Bank of India’s latest monetary policy review has left the policy rates unchanged and the Statutory Liquidity Ratio has been revised by 1% to 25%.

Monetary Policy Action For A Sustainable Fragile Recovery

Over the past few months, the health of the global economies have been improved significantly however, the recent RBI’s monetary policy shows that the central bank is taking no chance for the sake of the economic growth as the RBI understands that the current economic recovery is fragile. Perhaps, the companies around the world are announcing better than expected quarterly results, but its not showing the real growth in revenue or on the bottom-line side, but actually it shows the positive response of cost cutting measures, which had been taken when the recession was at peak in Sep, 2008. Moreover, since the Indian economy decelerated in the last few quarters, Reserve Bank is taking permissive measures regardless the inflation problem which is persisting and would force the RBI in near future to take hawkish policy actions for a sustainable growth and to prevent the possible asset bubble, the same which was done by the former RBI Governor – Yaga Venugopal Reddy, who raised the interest rates even in difficult times to avert the Indian Banks from huge losses. To safeguard the economy from the rising public debt, the fiscal stimulus needs to be sustained until the recovery is on. Whether the economy is collapsing or recovering from the gorge, it is the crucial economic cycle and the sustainable recovery would be taken care of by way of stimulating the demand in a bleak times. In the recent economic research done by the VMW on the Indian Economy, in which we have mentioned about the disparity between the WPI and CPI inflation. The same is now concerning the central bank to decide over the interest rates which has been mentioned in the Minutes of Meeting (MoM) of the Board of Governors of RBI.

On Tue, 27th Oct 2009, RBI has left its key policy rates (Repo and Reverse Repo) unchanged for a while and hinted upon a high degree of probability of higher inflation in the near future which would be a turnaround for the interest rates. Moreover, the central bank emphasis on credit flows to the Agriculture and SME sector for a growth revival has disappointed the Real Estate industry. RBI has not even touched the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) as the liquidity in the market is still at a comfortable level. Upto first week of Oct 2009, M3 Money Supply was at 18.9 per cent above the RBI estimate as the large Government Borrowings reflecting the expansion of M3 Stock of Money.

Over the past few years, RBI’s monetary actions are always growth specific. India is a supply constrained economy as compare to developed economies which are lagging by lament demand. To supply the ample social infrastructure, RBI is now focussing on the Real Estate and Infrastructure sector. The stance of the Monetary Policy for the rest of the year 2009 under different monetary measures in which the Repo Rate and Reverse Repo rate has been leave unchange at 4.75%, and 3.25% respectively. CRR has also been retained unchanged at 5% while the SLR has been revised by 1 percentage point to 25%.

Is the 35% to 70% rally in a global stock market showing the recovery in the global economy or it is just a bear market rally? But its clear, this rally cannot be justified why? Lets start read the whole review. Even before the World Bank prediction, VMW have already made a bleak outlook for the global economy.

Since Mar, 2009 – equity markets has rallied by more than 30% from their Mar ’09 lows. What we could expect from this? Is it showing the recovery in the global economy or it is just a bear market rally or it is just giving some hope of recovery in the global economy? Whatever the recent trends in the global financial markets are developing, but the situation is still unclear. Economies are still struggling, investors are still losing their wealth, banks and financial companies are still losing their profits, credit market are still nervy, people are still very anxious about their job prospect, consumers are still shunning from the spending, companies are still losing their markets, and there are lot of other problems, which are revolving around us. Everyone is questioning about the economic prospect. For how long, this recession will last? When we should see the time of better prospect which we had witnessed before this crisis?

Do you believe, the economy is now going to settling down or at least set to recover from here? Hmm…Yes, but not at a full pace. Since the crisis has embarked, banks and financial institutions have lost more than $700 billion in total losses, and it is not very easy for them to recover from this huge massive trouble in a very short period of time. Banks and FIs are striving to sustain their business in these tough times. Financial condition of the banks however is still not in a good shape and their bad assets in a balance sheet are still a major setback for them to recuperate from this. However, the government authorities and central bank around the world are taking adequate measures to heal the bank’s pain to put these banks back on the growth track.

Now, let’s talk about the Indian economy and its financial system. Indian Government is persistently putting pressure on the Indian Banks to reduce interest rates to the important sectors like Real Estate and Infrastructure. The liquidity situation in the country was very fickle and lot of apprehension in the call money market when the global recession was at a peak during Sep, 2008 followed by the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Incorporated. At that time, banks even unable to lend to each other, resulted call rates jumped up to 20% (See Exhibit 1 for the reference). However, the liquidity is now at a comfortable levels and call rates lingering around 3% and 4% and even falls below 3% in May ’09. If the Indian economy has an adequate amount of liquidity in the system, so why banks and financial institutions are still dis-inclining to lend?

Firstly, this crisis proved to be the disastrous one especially for the international banks. Indian banks are still far better than the foreign banks. In India, banks have only saw decline in their revenue growth and profits and in some cases mark to market losses (largely known by MTM losses), however the foreign banks have lost almost trillions of dollars in the last 6 quarters and still struggling to do their business as usual. So, here the reason could be the lack of confidence. Secondly, the higher cost of credit. In India, the banks are largely depend on the time deposits (also known as Fixed Deposits or Term Deposits) for the primary source of funds to lend in which they have to offer more than 7% interest rate to the depositors. The cheaper source of credit to the banks is Current Account and Savings Account deposits (also known as Checking Account). Generally banks offer 3.5% to 4% interest rates on Savings Account and nil on Current Account. That is the reason – banks are now focusing on to reduce the cost burden.

Stimulus Package Announcement? To refuel the growth in the export oriented industries, newly elected government should consider announcing Stimulus Package for the export industry such as Textiles, Gems & Jewelers, Steel and other industries which are vastly depend on the exports and to focus on the lower cost of credit to revive the infrastructure, Real Estate sector and Auto Sector.

Indian economy as a whole

India's CPI and WPI Comparison for Year 2008.

Earlier, we’ve mentioned some important points which are specifically have certain influence on the Indian Economy. Out of those, one the most prominent is the variance between the WPI and CPI which actually making difficult for the RBI to take stance. Since the change in base year in Wholesale Price Index (WPI), inflation has steeply fallen from over 10% to almost zero within 6 months and interestingly, CPI has not been affected that much and still at over 8%. This is going to be a troublesome for the Reserve Bank of India while considering any change in its monetary policy. RBI should consider CPI numbers while taking any appropriate decision on the interest rates. Overall the inflation rate has created confusion for the RBI, that is the reason, the Indian Ministry of Statistics and Planning Implementation (MosPI) is going to launch CPI next year.

US Dollar Trivializing and Euro Gaining Fiat Currency Status? Now, the another important developments since last year is rising Fiscal Deficit. This is not a single problem in the Indian Economy alone, actually many economies around world are facing the same kind of threat. US and UK probably would face the de-rating of their Bond/debt from the credit rating organizations. What would probably going to happen? Of course US Dollar may witness significant reduction in its value against the major currencies as the biggest creditors – China, Japan will sell US Treasury en-masse. The world’s fastest developing nations like India, China, Russia, Brazil are the biggest holder of US Dollars and may consider to revise their dependence on the US Dollar and in that case, US Dollar would lost its status as a Fiat currency (or universal currency) and will see the huge depreciation.

Countering Tax Evasion is the Solution to the Soaring Deficits? With the Governments facing rising budget deficits while combating the economic crisis, tax authorities around the world have agreed on a plan to encourage tax compliance and counter tax evasion specially focusing on the banks, financial institutions, wealthy individuals and offshore investments. US, which have announced trillions of dollars of bailout packages to protect its economy is going to face significant rise in Debt to GDP ratio, perhaps would excess the 100% mark. The bailout packages, which cost nearly $5 Trillion to the American Taxpayers, will have to endure this strain possibly for the next decade. But the Indian economy in particular, which largely depends on the foreign inflows (FDI or FII) should check the rising fiscal deficit in order to maintain its sovereign rating.

Higher Inflation prospect? Lets check the Indian Government’s borrowing in the last four quarters of the financial year 2008-09.

The given below table shows the borrowings of the Indian Government in the last four quarters of FY2008-09. The amount shown is in Crores (Ten Million) of Indian Rupees.

As you can see from the above table which shows the Indian Government Debt, which is continuously rising. The upward trend in the Debt to GDP Ratio is actually showing the signs of concern. This would ruin the country’s credit rating and makes credit expensive to all of us. Moreover, the rise in issue of Bonds to the central bank would force them to print more money and infuse that money into the economy which could lead to rise in stock of money. Currently India’s stock of money (M1) stood at $261.49 Billion in compare to $253.06 Billion in Mar 2009. Rise in money supply means higher headline inflation.

After the elections, there is a rise in optimism among the investors and businesses. There are lot of tasks which are pending to the new government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which is also known as a Architect of the Indian Economy by opening up the Indian Economy since 1990s and the business leaders are expecting the same from the PM and his cabinet as they have a liberty to announce the favorable reforms for the Indian economy and to open up the Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) route in the sectors like Banks, Insurance, Retail, Infrastructure, Power and other sectors. After this, government should also need to focus on larger gap in Balance of Payment. Higher Current Account (CA) deficit is largely caused by the falling exports. As the Indian Economy is facing lot of challenges from the global economic downturn, so far the federal government had announced the two stimulus packages for the sector to enhance the potential of the export industry to survive in the challenging time and to boost the domestic demand and the industry is expecting the another stimulus package as the condition of the global economy is still looking uncertain.

Economy in Rest of Year 2009

Not easy to answer! When the year 2009 was approaching after bloody ending of 2008, economist around the world were expected that the economy should continue to contract and even sharper than expected. Central banks around the world have slashed their interest rates further in order to fuel the economic growth engine and even the crucial G-20 summit in London also proved as a sturdy solution for this global mess. Global equity markets have regained their strength and recovered by more than 30% from their Mar ’09 lows. That is the strong thumbs up from the investors in response to the global authority. But economies like US, UK, Germany, France, Japan and other developed economies are still contracting and seeing the worst economic data in more than a decade. US economy in particular, will take at least five years to recover from the massive amount of losses that has damaged the country’s financial system badly. Now the trillions of dollars of bailout package has been announced in response to this crisis and this will probably swell to multi trillion dollars in amount in the next few years and indeed will convert into a huge deficit for the country, which will be inherited to the newer generation of the country. Indian economy is also facing the same challenge, and this threat must be contain for a fresh start of the global economy by following the determination of the G-20 Summit which was held in London, UK.

So overall, the situation is sill in a very bad shape and the recovery in the global market is not showing the real picture. The rise in consumer confidence, business sentiment, and the perception about the particular economy would take some time to revive.

Reserve Bank of India modifies its monetary policy. RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao has slashed CRR and policy rates several time since he took the charge.

Banks are under significant liquidity pressure and it is evident that the banks are now withdrawing money under the central bank’s Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) or Repurchase Agreement (Repo). Is the RBI cogitating the another rate hike to contain inflation under the compressed liquidity situation? Find out more.

The Reserve Bank of India Headquarters in Mumbai.

On Tuesday Apr 21, 2009, India’s Central bank – Reserve Bank of India has announced its Annual Policy on Macroeconomic and Monetary Developments. RBI has slashed its policy rates by 25 bps. BPS is Basis Points which should be defined by One Hundredth of a one percentage point 1/100th of 1%.

After the reduction in policy rates, RBI’s Repo rate stands at 4.75% and Reverse Repo rate stands at 3.25%. Repo means repurchase agreement in which banks sell government securities to the RBI in exchange for cash and agrees to repurchase those securities from the RBI at a later date which is the Reverse Repo Rate. While addressing to media, RBI Governor stresses that the bank should pass-on the reduction benefits to the consumers. India has witnessed the steep fall in demand for a credit.

RBI Reference Rate As on Apr 2009

Bank Rate

6%

Repo Rate

4.75%

Reverse Repo Rate

3.25%

Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR)

5%

Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR)

24%

Prime Lending Rate (PLR)

13%

The Indian Economy has also got affected by the economic crisis in developed countries. Since mid of Sep 2008, when the major financial institutions were collapsed, the India’s central bank has reduced its policy rates and CRR by number of times and SLR by 100 bps since than to prop the Indian economy up. India’s money supply dropped to 18.4% in compare to 21.7% last year which signifies the deceleration in credit market and the capital inflows. In the last few months, Indian Rupee has depreciated by more than 18% and likely to depreciate further due to higher risk aversion in Rupee denominated assets, acute deleveraging due to falling exports which resulted fall in corporate earnings and strong demand for US Dollar due to huge amount of selling in equity markets. However, since Mar 09, financial markets have performed better in compare to its peers and other developed markets due to attracting and cheap valuation of the India Incorporated. By taking these factors in mind, RBI is taking precise decision on a periodic basis to respond to the global financial crisis and to make a favorable economic environment. India’s external debt and national debt has reached the level of 49% to the annual gross domestic product, however the strong foreign reserves would ensure the external stability.

This research has been Superannuated by the VMW Research Team. This research might not be applicable in today’s economic context.

Reserve Bank of India has been cutting Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 250 bps to 6.5% from 9% a week ago. Such a type of move by the RBI is commendable indeed, however these moves are temporarily to boost liquidity which is dried up due to massive outflow from the country. Inter bank Call rates jumped to 20% even London Inter Bank Offer Rate (LIBOR) has also jumped to over 6% from 2% a month ago due liquidity conditons. Banks are even scaring to lend each other.

The recent CRR cut would release up to Rs. 60,000.00 crores in the Financial System and banks will get their reserves back so that they can meet their requirements, however the RBI shall roll back its decision any time soon when the liquidity situation improves to regular check on inflation which is already in double digit for the last 3 months.

Follow our World on Twitter!

Financial Markets

Sensex: 20851.33
37.00

NSE Nifty: 6211.15
10.00

India’s Inflation Rate For Nov 2013

Inflation rate in Nov 2013 (Based on Wholesale Price Index) jumped to 7.52 percent in comparing to 7.00 percent on a month over month basis (Oct 2013). Please Note: Inflation rate updates every second week of the month and last updated on Wed, Dec 25, 2013.